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StrategEast team is thrilled to present the StrategEast Westernization Report 2019 in which the experts from Eurasian and Baltic countries describe the most important political and economic events that occurred in post-Soviet region in 2018. The experts selected a wide variety of events, which will most likely affect the degree of westernization in their respective countries – from the transition to the Latin alphabet in Kazakhstan to blockchain innovations in Lithuania, and from tax reform in Uzbekistan to the peaceful revolution in Armenia. It is not easy to discern clearly defined tendencies in the PSNR region’s development from this vibrant variety; however, there are two critically important conclusions.
First, the region as a whole is demonstrating positive trends. In nine of the fourteen countries studied, events selected by our experts will undoubtedly facilitate further progression towards Western values. In two cases – the constitutional reform review in Georgia and measures to battle corruption in Kyrgyzstan – it would be premature to make any inferences about potential outcomes. In the process of implementing those legislative measures, much will depend not just on the authorities, but in equal measure on the activeness of the civil society which will need to “protect” the results of those reforms.
The second important tendency is that, in the majority of countries, events which had a positive effect on the degree of Westernization were initiated by the government. While it was logical to expect that from the obvious leaders of our rating – Estonia and Latvia, and to some degree from Ukraine – the actions of the governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus once again proved that “top down westernization” was possible in countries with a wide variety of political systems.
Will the trends outlined in the StrategEast Westernization Report 2019 be confirmed or disproven? The StrategEast Westernization Index 2020, to be published next year, will examine that issue quantitatively.
